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asbury park photos

Once among the top seaside resorts on the East Coast, Asbury Park is keeping abreast of vacationers' changing tastes: It is considering letting women go topless on a city beach.

The boardwalk in Asbury Park has approximately 40 businesses now — up from zero a few years ago and is seen as one of the bright spots in the this struggling community.

An abandoned building sits across from a newer condo development in Asbury Park. Asbury Park’s story is a good example of what happens in an economic downturn to high-flying development visions.

The Wonder Bar, owned by Debbie DeLisa and musician Lance Larson, is an Asbury Park institution with a musical history associated with Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemmons and Bon Jovi. Still, this popular bar and music venue sits mostly alone amid undeveloped lots.

High School guidance counselor and Asbury Park Councilwoman Sue Henderson, bought this abandoned house in Asbury Park and turned it into a lakefront show piece. City planners are hoping as the economy strengthens, more and more properties will be revitalized.

As a sign of the times, the soup kitchen at the Trinity Episcopal Church is very crowded. Here, Marvin Mann, 75, attends on Saturday afternoon for a meal. Mann is a retired accountant on a fixed income, and this helps him make ends meet.

In a sign of hope for Asbury Park, the city’s boardwalk has been revived and now is crowded with visitors on weekends. Many projects in the city remain to be completed.

Just off the beach, the Casino in Asbury Park, N.J., never housed gambling but did have a carousel and a roller rink. A flea market was there in the 1990s. Now it’s vacant and aging shell symbolizes the city’s decline.

Marilyn Schlossbach owns three businesses with her husband and brother on the Asbury Park boardwalk. Despite some tough times for development in Asbury Park, she and her family are optimistic that their future is bright.

Just blocks off the beautiful Asbury Park beach, are dilapidated buildings and projects that have run out of money. Rarely has land of such potential value sat so empty for so long, says Donald Moliver, a real estate expert at nearby Monmouth University. It helped make Asbury Park one of the New Jersey’s poorest cities — dependent on the state for one-quarter of its municipal budget — and the pariah of the Jersey Shore

The concrete stub of a new condominium tower sits unfinished on the site of older, failed condo project, torn down in 2006. Planned to spur waterfront renewal, these projects have been hurt by the recession and stalled. It’s unclear when construction on the tower will resume, or when life will come to the vacant fields and parking lots around it.